Systems and methods for initializing allocations of transport streams based on historical data

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

0001This application relates to efficient allocations of transport streams to support simultaneous delivery of media assets. Moreover, the application relates to initializing allocations of transport streams based on historical data associated with user requests for simultaneous delivery of media assets.

0002With Internet media data merging with traditional television programs, more demands have been placed on data providers (e.g., cable television service providers, internet providers) to deliver media assets from various sources to millions of users simultaneously using existing communications infrastructure. In particular, the demand for simultaneous delivery of media assets using one stream selector (e.g., television tuner) is increasing, which increases the demand for frequency bandwidths. For example, during a high-demand time period, one or more members of a family may wish to receive multiple media assets, as every member has different viewing interests. However, traditional systems limit the number of media assets a family member, or user, can simultaneously receive using one stream selector because they lack an efficient method for allocating user-requested media assets to transport streams. As a result, the traditional systems are unable to accommodate many user requests involving simultaneous delivery of media assets, especially during peak hours.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

0003The invention, in various embodiments, addresses deficiencies in the prior art by providing systems and methods for efficiently allocating media assets to transport streams to allow simultaneous delivery of media assets using a single stream selector (e.g., a tuner).

0004In view of the foregoing, systems and methods for efficient allocations of transport streams are provided. In particular, a user's request to simultaneously receive more than two media assets may be received. An indicator may indicate to the control circuitry that the requested media assets are linked as a block of media assets. The control circuitry may identify a transport stream with enough bandwidth to transport the block of linked media assets. After identifying such a transport stream, the control circuitry may allocate the linked media assets to the transport stream. To conserve system bandwidths, control circuitry may advantageously determine which transport stream should transport the media assets in such a way that the utilizations of all transport streams are efficiently maximized.

0005In some instances, control circuitry may re-allocate media assets transporting on one or more transport streams to create enough bandwidth to transport a media asset. During re-allocations, the control circuitry may be triggered by the indicator to re-allocate the linked media assets to the same transport stream. This way, a user with only one stream selector may be able to tune to the carrier frequency associated with the identified transport stream to receive all the requested media assets simultaneously.

0006Over time, a plurality of users interaction with their respective user equipment devices may be monitored. In particular, the control circuitry may monitor, for each user, the user's viewing history associated with various types of user requests in addition to the user's request to simultaneously receive at least two media assets. The control circuitry may use the viewing history to initialize allocations of transport streams to minimize the amount of re-allocations or to quickly identify an available transport stream when a user request is received. Various machine learning algorithms, such as the Bayesian algorithm, may process the viewing data to predict a future bandwidth demand, such as in the next hour or part of a day. The control circuitry may use such predictions to proactively and/or periodically initialize allocations of media assets to transport streams for a day or a part of a day to ensure that most user's requests are accommodated.

0007In certain embodiments, a first user request no simultaneously receive a first and second media asset using a single stream selector may be received. The user request to simultaneously receive the first and second media asset may be a request to simultaneously store the first and second media asset in a storage element of a user equipment device. The user request may also be a request to simultaneously view the first and second media asset on one or more displays. First, the first and second media assets are linked as a block, of linked media assets. Second, an indicator that indicates the linkage is stored in a database. The indicator may indicate to control circuitry that the block of linked assets are to be allocated to the same transport stream. Third, the control circuitry may identify a transport stream in which a portion of a bandwidth associated with the transport stream is large enough to transport the first block, of linked media assets. Finally, the control circuitry may allocate the first block of media assets to the identified transport stream.

0008In one aspect, to maximize the utilization of each transport stream, the previously identified transport stream may have the least amount of available bandwidth to transport the linked media assets. First, the control circuitry may identify a plurality of transport streams, each of which has enough bandwidth to transport the first block of linked media assets. Second, the control circuitry may then determine which of the plurality of transport streams has the least amount of available bandwidth relative to the other transport streams. The control circuitry may further determine that the identified transport stream is one of the plurality of transport streams determined as having the least amount of available bandwidth.

0009In another aspect, the control circuitry may determine that no transport stream currently has enough bandwidth to transport the first block of linked media assets. Thus, the control circuitry may request re-allocations of one or more media assets currently being transported on a first transport stream. The control circuitry may re-allocate one or more media assets transported on the first of the plurality of transport streams to a second of the plurality of transport streams such that the first transport stream may have enough bandwidth to transport the first block of linked media assets, after the one or more media assets are re-allocated to the second transport stream.

0010In other embodiments, the control circuitry of a mixed service system may receive a user request to simultaneously receive at least two media assets using a single stream selector. As a first instance of a user request to receive one of the at least two media assets, the control circuitry may allocate, at a first time, the at least two media assets to different transport streams. Once a user request is received, the control circuitry may generate and store a viewing history based on the user request during a predetermined time period. At a second time, which is later than the first time, and as a second instance of a user request to simultaneously receive the at least two media assets, the control circuitry may allocate the media assets to the same transport stream. The allocation of the transport stream may be determined based on the viewing history that was generated by the control circuitry.

0011In some instances, the first instance of the at least two media assets may correspond to a first episode in a series of episodes of each of the at least two media assets. Similarly, the second instance may correspond to a second episode in the series of episodes of each of the at least two media assets.

0012In one aspect, the control circuitry may generate the viewing history according to a plurality of user requests to receive the at least two media assets. The plurality of requests may be received from a plurality of users other than the user. Each of the plurality of requests may be a user request to tune to a transport stream of one of the at least two media assets. In another instance, each of the plurality of requests may be a user request to schedule a reminder or recording of one of the at least two media assets.

0013In another aspect, the mixed service system may be a fixed line-up system. The control circuitry may initialize allocations of media assets to transport screams at the beginning of a day. The beginning of a day associated with the first instance may be the first time. Similarly, the beginning of a day associated with the second instance may be the second time.

0014In yet another aspect, the mixed service system is Switch Digital Video (SDV) system and the allocations of media assets to transport streams are dynamically updated. In some instances, the allocations of media assets to transport streams at the first time are different from the second time. The control circuitry in the SDV system may further create a look-ahead mapping of allocations of media assets to transport streams. The control circuitry may do so by determining allocations of media assets to transport streams for a future time period.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

0015The above and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

0016<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 1 and 2</figref> show illustrative display screens that may be used to provide media guidance for application listings in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0017<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref> shows an illustrative user equipment device in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0018<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref> is a simplified diagram of an illustrative interactive media system in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0019<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 5 and 6</figref> show illustrative display of media menu screens provided by a media guidance application in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0020<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 7</figref> is a simplified diagram illustrating a content delivery server processing user requests, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0021<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 8</figref> is an illustrative transport streams utilization graph in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0022<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 9</figref> is an illustrative transport streams utilization graph during reallocation in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0023<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 10</figref> illustrates exemplary data structures associated with groups of linked media assets in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0024<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 11</figref> is a flow diagram of an allocation algorithm for determining allocations of transport streams in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0025<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 12</figref> is a flow diagram of an optimization algorithm for reallocations of transport streams in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

0026<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 13</figref> illustrates examples of viewing data used for determining channel lineup during initialization of allocations of transport streams in accordance with one embodiment of the invention; and

0027<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 14</figref> is a flow diagram describing initializing allocations of transport streams in accordance with one embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

0028It is well known in the art that transport streams are based on the legacy frequency bandwidths allocated for radio transmissions, as set by the FCC. Each transport stream can be identified by its center carrier frequency, such as 56 MHz. The range of bandwidth associated with each transport stream is approximately 6 MHz as this was the standard for transmitting an analog channel. The same transport stream for transporting an analog channel can now be used to multiplex about ten media assets, or ten digital channels (e.g., assuming 256 bit Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), by compressing data using MPEG-2 or MPEG-4. This makes it possible for a user equipment system with only one stream selector to receive ten media assets simultaneously transporting on the same transport stream. FCC have allocated carrier frequencies from 56 MHz to about 1000 MHz to be used by content providers for broadcasting/delivering content to end users. Therefore, the content providers have approximately 150 transport streams to deliver approximately 1000 non-high definition media assets simultaneously, assuming ten media assets require an entire transport stream (each transport stream can support fewer than ten HD media assets).

0029With such a vast amount of transport streams that content providers may utilize to deliver user requested media assets to their equipment systems, conservation of bandwidth remains a major concern and cost for these providers because millions of users demand more and more data at a higher-than-ever speed. Consequently, many users desire a form of media guidance interface, which the users may efficiently navigate to areas of the interface to select media of their choice. Application that provides such guidance is referred to herein as an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a media guidance application or a guidance application.

0030Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms depending on the media for which they provide guidance. One typical type of media guidance application is an interactive television program guide. Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to as electronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that, among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many types of media content including conventional television programming (provided via traditional broadcast, cable, satellite, Internet, or other means), as well as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand (VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming media, downloadable media, Webcasts, etc.), and other types of media or video content. Guidance applications also allow users to navigate among and locate content related to she video content including, for example, video clips, articles, advertisements, chat sessions, games, etc. Guidance applications also allow users to navigate among and locate multimedia content. The term multimedia is defined herein as media and content that utilizes at least two different content forms, such as text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms. Multimedia content may be recorded and played, displayed or accessed by information content processing devices, such as computerized and electronic devices, but can also be part of a live performance. It should be understood that the invention embodiments that are discussed in relation to media content are also applicable to other types of content, such as video, audio and/or multimedia.

0031With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speed wireless networks, users are accessing media on personal computers (PCs) and other devices on which they traditionally did not, such as hand-held computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile telephones, or other mobile devices. On these devices users are able to navigate among and locate the same media available through a television. Consequently, media guidance is necessary on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be for media content available only through a television, for media content available only through one or more of these devices, or for media content available both through a television and one or more of these devices. The media guidance applications may be provided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or as stand-alone applications or clients on hand-held computers, PDAs, mobile telephones, or other mobile devices. The various devices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications are described in more detail below.

0032One of the functions of the media guidance application is to provide media listings and media information to users. <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 1-2</figref> and <b>5</b>-<b>6</b> show illustrative display screens that may be used to provide media guidance, and in particular media listings. The display screens shown in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 1-2</figref> and <b>5</b>-<b>6</b> may be implemented on any suitable device or platform. While the displays of <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 1-2</figref> and <b>5</b>-<b>9</b> are illustrated as full screen displays, they may also be fully or partially overlaid over media content being displayed. A user may indicate a desire to access media information by selecting a selectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, a listings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicated button (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user input interface or device. In response to the user's indication, the media guidance application may provide a display screen with media information organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in a grid, by time, by channel, by media type, by category (e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories of programming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organization criteria.

0033<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 1</figref> shows illustrative-grid program listings display <b>100</b> arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different types of media content in a single display. Display <b>100</b> may include grid <b>102</b> with: (1) a column of channel/media type identifiers <b>104</b>, where each channel/media type identifier (which is a cell in the column) identifies a different channel or media type available; and (2) a row of time identifiers <b>106</b>, where each time identifier (which is a cell in the row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid <b>102</b> also includes cells of program listings, such as program listing <b>108</b>, where each listing provides the title of the program provided on the listing's associated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can select program listings by moving highlight region <b>110</b>. Information relating to the program listing selected by highlight region <b>110</b> may be provided in program information region <b>112</b>. Region <b>112</b> may include, for example, the program title, the program description, the time the program is provided (if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), the program's rating, and other desired information. Alternatively, or in addition, the program information region <b>112</b> may include a list of all the selected media assets that a user wishes to receive (see <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 5</figref>). As will be discussed in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 6</figref>, if the media assets selected are to be simultaneously delivered, the program information region <b>112</b> may also include the name of the block containing the linked media assets to be simultaneously delivered. Other types of information may also be displayed in the program information region depending on how the present media guidance application is being utilized.

0034In addition to providing access to linear programming provided according to a schedule, the media guidance application also provides access to non-linear programming which is not provided according to a schedule. Non-linear programming may include content from different media sources including on-demand media content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g., streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored media content (e.g., video content stored on a digital video recorder (DVR), digital video disc (DVD), video cassette, compact disc (CD), etc.), or other time-insensitive media content. A user may also create non-linear programming from linear programming. As seen in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 5 and 6</figref>, a user may store into a DVR media assets to be received at a particular time. For example, a user may navigate to programming to be aired at 9:00 pm on Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010 and use a user input device to select, “Sex &amp; the City,” “Lost,” and “The Hills.” The user may they decide to store or record these linear media assets and, thereby, creating non-linear programming. Once received by a stream selector located at a user equipment system, the user would be able to view such media assets at a later time, making them time-shifted media content.

0035In a Switch Digital Video system, the content provider may be able to modulate a live media asset, or programming, a user is presently watching using the same carrier frequency as the media assets that the user has requested to be simultaneously delivered. This way, because both the live media asset and the time shifted media assets are transported on the same transport stream, because they are modulated using the same carrier frequency, the stream selector may be able to receive all of these media assets simultaneously by tuning into the carrier frequency.

0036A user may also be prompted to select non-linear programming such as the on-demand content may include both movies and original media content provided by a particular media provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time Warner Company L. P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM are trademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content may include web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or content available on-demand as streaming media or downloadable media through an Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g., FTP).

0037Grid <b>102</b> may provide listings for non-linear programming including on-demand listing <b>114</b>, recorded media listing <b>116</b>, and Internet content listing <b>118</b>. Each type of programming, non-linear or linear, may be provided by the same and/or different content sources, as will be explained in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 7</figref>. A content delivery system may either aggregate the data to be delivered to end users, or provide the transport stream carrier frequency to each media source so that each media source may deliver a user requested media asset at the given carrier frequency. A display combining listings for content from different types of media sources is sometimes referred to as a “mixed-media” display. The various permutations of the types of listings that may be displayed that are different than display <b>100</b> may be based on user selection or guidance application definition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings, only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings <b>114</b>, <b>116</b>, and <b>118</b> are shown as spanning the entire time block displayed in grid <b>102</b> to indicate that selection of these listings may provide access to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings, or Internet listings, respectively. In other embodiments, listings for these media types may be included directly in grid <b>102</b>. Additional listings may be displayed in response to the user selecting one of the navigational icons <b>120</b>. (Pressing an arrow key on a user input device may affect the display in a similar manner as selecting navigational icons <b>120</b>.)

0038Display <b>100</b> may also include video region <b>122</b>, advertisement <b>124</b>, and options region <b>126</b>. Video region <b>122</b> may allow the user to view and/or preview programs that are currently available, will be available, or were available to the user. The content of video region <b>122</b> may correspond to, or be independent from, one of the listings displayed in grid <b>102</b>. Grid displays including a video region are sometimes referred to as picture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalities are described in greater detail, in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794, issued. May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other media guidance application display screens of the present invention.

0039Advertisement <b>124</b> may provide an advertisement for media content that, depending on a viewer's access rights (e.g., for subscription programming), is currently available for viewing, will be available for viewing in the future, or may never become available for viewing, and may correspond to or be unrelated to one or more of the media listings in grid <b>102</b>. Advertisement <b>124</b> may also be for products or services related or unrelated to the media content displayed in grid <b>102</b>. Advertisement <b>124</b> may be selectable and provide further information about media content, provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing of media content, a product, or a service, provide media content relating to the advertisement, etc. Advertisement <b>124</b> may be targeted based on a user's profile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of display provided, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases.

0040The advertisement <b>124</b>, as will be explained in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 5 and 6</figref>, may be related to media assets that a user has selected to be simultaneously delivered. During peak hours, the content delivery system may instantly re-allocate media assets currently allocated to certain transport streams so that enough bandwidth would be created to allow the content delivery system to deliver the requested media assets on the same transport stream. In some embodiments, the re-allocation of media assets is not instant. While a user is waiting for the content delivery system during re-allocations, the content delivery system may deliver targeted advertisements related to the requested media assets. This way, while waiting, users may be given information about other products that they may be interested. Users may also be given the option to select a product advertised on the advertisement <b>124</b> to be simultaneously delivered, along with the other selected media assets. In fact, if, during re-allocations, the content delivery system has created enough bandwidth on a transport stream to accommodate the user requested media assets and more, the content delivery system may offer the media assets displayed in the advertisement <b>124</b> at a discounted price. Depending on the advertisement pricing model used by a content delivery system, the user may be given the option to receive all the requested media assets at a discounted price if an advertised media asset is selected to be simultaneously delivered and viewed.

0041While advertisement <b>124</b> is shown as rectangular or banner shaped, advertisements may be provided in any suitable size, shape, and location in a guidance application display. For example, advertisement <b>124</b> may be provided as a rectangular shape that is horizontally adjacent to grid <b>102</b>. This is sometimes referred to as a panel advertisement. In addition, advertisements may be overlaid over media content or a guidance application display or embedded within a display. Advertisements may also include text, images, rotating images, video clips, or other types of media content. Advertisements may be stored in the user equipment with the guidance application, in a database connected to the user equipment, in a remote location (including streaming media servers), or on other storage means or a combination of these locations. Providing advertisements in a media guidance application is discussed in greater detail in, for example, Knudson et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0110499, filed Jan. 17, 2003, Ward, III et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,997, issued Jun. 29, 2004, and Schein et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,388,714, issued May 14, 2002, which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. It will be appreciated that advertisements may be included in other media guidance application display screens of the present invention.

0042Options region <b>126</b> may allow the user to access different types of media content, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidance application features. Options region <b>126</b> may be part of display <b>100</b> (and other display screens of the present invention), or may be invoked by a user by selecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignable button on a user input device. The selectable options within options region <b>126</b> may concern features related to program listings in grid <b>102</b> or may include options available from a main menu display. Features related to program listings may include searching for other air times or ways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling series recording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite, purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a main menu display may include search options, VOD options, parental control options, access to various types of listing displays, subscribe to a premium service, edit a user's profile, access a browse overlay, check status of a requested media asset, or other options. There may be an additional option when data associated with media assets requested to be simultaneously delivered is received by a user equipment system's stream selector.

0043The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user's preferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user to customize displays and features to create a personalized “experience” with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may be created by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by the media guidance application monitoring user activity to determine various user preferences. Users may access their personalized guidance application by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to the guidance application. Customization of the media guidance application may be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations may include varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays, font size of text, etc.), aspects of media content listings displayed (e.g., only HDTV programming, use specified broadcast channels based on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display of channels, recommended media content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g., recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality, such as to record a media asset in Standard Definition as opposed to High Definition to allow the user to simultaneously receive, and then store, more media assets, etc.), parental control settings, and other desired customizations.

0044The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profile information or may automatically compile user profile information. The media guidance application may, for example, monitor the media the user accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with the guidance application and/or other features of the applications. Using a user's profile and monitored data, such as a user's viewing data, may allow the content delivery system to predict the bandwidth demand for a part of a day and/or an entire day. The content delivery may then utilize such predictions to efficiently allocate media assets to transport streams to accommodate user demands involving simultaneous delivery of media assets using one stream selector.

0045Additionally, the media guidance application may obtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to a particular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the user accesses, such as www.tvguide.com, from other media guidance applications the user accesses, from other interactive applications the user accesses, from a handheld device of the user, etc.), and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that the media guidance application may access. As a result, a user can be provided with a unified guidance application experience across the user's different devices. This type of user experience is described in creator detail below in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref>. Additional personalized media guidance application features are described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/437,304, filed Nov. 9, 1999, and Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0174430, flied Feb. 21, 2002, which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. Using such unified guidance application, a user may further access and interact with other devices connected to a home network. For example, a user may use one single stream selector to receive multiple media assets which may then be stored onto a plurality of networked devices, such as DVRs, computers, mobile devices, etc. An illustrative example is described in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 7</figref>.

0046Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2</figref>. Video mosaic display <b>200</b> includes selectable options <b>202</b> for media content information organized based on media type, genre, and/or other organization criteria. In display <b>200</b>, television listings option <b>204</b> is selected, thus providing listings <b>206</b>, <b>208</b>, <b>210</b>, and <b>212</b> as broadcast program listings. Unlike the listings from <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 1</figref>, the listings in display <b>200</b> are not limited to simple text (e.g., the program title) and icons to describe media. Rather, in display <b>200</b> the listings may provide graphical images including cover art, still images from the media content, video clip previews, live video from the media content, or other types of media that indicate to a user the media content being described by the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also be accompanied by text to provide further information about the media content associated with the listing. For example, listing <b>208</b> may include more than one portion, including media portion <b>214</b> and text portion <b>216</b>. Media portion <b>214</b> and/or text portion <b>216</b> may be selectable to view video in full-screen or to view program listings related to the video displayed in media portion <b>214</b> (e.g., to view listings for the channel that the video is displayed on).

0047The listings in display <b>200</b> are of different sizes (i.e., listing <b>206</b> is larger than listings <b>208</b>, <b>210</b>, and <b>212</b>), but if desired, all the listings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes or graphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user or to emphasize certain content, as desired by the media provider or based on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphically accentuating media listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/324,202, filed Dec. 29, 2005, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

0048Users may access media content and the media guidance application (and its display screens described above and below) from one or more of their user equipment devices. <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref> shows a generalized embodiment of illustrative user equipment device <b>300</b>. More specific implementations of user equipment devices are discussed below in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 4 and 7</figref>. User equipment device <b>300</b> may receive media content and data via input/output (hereinafter “I/O”) path <b>302</b>. I/O path <b>302</b> may provide media content (e.g., broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, and other video or audio) and data to control circuitry <b>304</b>, which includes processing circuitry <b>306</b> and storage <b>308</b>. Control circuitry <b>304</b> may be used to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable data using I/O path <b>302</b>. I/O path <b>302</b> may connect control circuitry <b>304</b> (and specifically processing circuitry <b>306</b>) to one or more communications paths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a single path in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref> to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

0049Control circuitry <b>304</b> may be based on any suitable processing circuitry <b>306</b> such as processing circuitry based on one or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors, programmable logic devices, etc. In some embodiments, control circuitry <b>304</b> executes instructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e., delivery <b>308</b>). In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry <b>304</b> may include communications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidance application or other networks or servers. Communications circuitry may include a cable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, a digital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment. Such communications may involve the Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths (which is described in more detail in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref>). In addition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enables peer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communication of user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (described in more detail below).

0050Memory (e.g., random-access memory, read-only memory, or any other suitable memory), hard drives, optical drives, or any other suitable fixed or removable storage devices (e.g., DVD recorder, CD recorder, video cassette recorder, or other suitable recording device) may be provided as storage <b>308</b> that is part of control circuitry <b>304</b>. Storage <b>308</b> may include one or more of the above types of storage devices. For example, user equipment device <b>300</b> may include a hard drive for a DVR (sometimes called a personal video recorder, or PVR) and a DVD recorder as a secondary storage device. Storage <b>308</b> may be used to store various types of media described herein and guidance application data, including program information, guidance application settings, user preferences or profile information, or other data used in operating the guidance application. Nonvolatile memory may also be used (e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions).

0051Control, circuitry <b>304</b> may include a demodulator, video generating circuitry and tuning circuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2 decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, or any other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of such circuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog, or digital signals to MPEG signals for delivery) may also be provided. Control circuitry <b>304</b> may also include scaler circuitry for upconverting and downconverting media into the preferred output format of the user equipment <b>300</b>. Circuitry <b>304</b> may also include digital-to-analog converter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry for converting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encoding circuitry may be used by the user equipment to receive and to display, to play, or to record media content. The tuning and encoding circuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitry described herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating, encoding, decoding, scaler, and analog/digital circuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or more general purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may be provided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and record functions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording, etc.). If storage <b>308</b> is provided as a separate device from user equipment <b>300</b>, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multiple tuners) may be associated with storage <b>308</b>.

0052A user may control the control circuitry <b>304</b> using user input interface <b>310</b>. User input interface <b>310</b> may be any suitable user interface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard, touch screen, touch pad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognition interface, or other user input interfaces. Display <b>312</b> may be provided as a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of user equipment device <b>300</b>. Display <b>312</b> may be one or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD) for a mobile device, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images. In some embodiments, display <b>312</b> may be HDTV-capable. Speakers <b>314</b> may be provided as integrated with other elements of user equipment device <b>300</b> or may be stand-alone units. The audio component of videos and other media content displayed on display <b>312</b> may be played through speakers <b>314</b>. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to a receiver (not shown) which processes and outputs the audio via speakers <b>314</b>.

0053The guidance application may be implemented using any suitable architecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone application wholly implemented on user equipment device <b>300</b>. In such an approach, instructions of the application are stored locally, and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodic basis (e.g., from the VBI of a television channel, from an out-of-band feed, or using another suitable approach). In another embodiment, the media guidance application is a client-server based application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented on user equipment device <b>300</b> is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests to a server remote to the user equipment device <b>300</b>. In one example of a client-server based guidance application, control circuitry <b>304</b> runs a web browser that interprets web pages provided by a content delivery server.

0054In yet other embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded and interpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (run by control circuitry <b>304</b>). In some embodiments, the guidance application may be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received by control circuitry <b>304</b> as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by a user agent running on control circuitry <b>304</b>. For example, the guidance application may be an EBIF widget. In other embodiments, the guidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files that are received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitable middleware executed by control circuitry <b>304</b>. In some of such embodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital media encoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encoded and transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio and video packets of a program.

0055User equipment device <b>300</b> of <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref> can be implemented in system <b>400</b> of <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref> as user television equipment <b>402</b>, user computer equipment <b>404</b>, wireless user communications device <b>406</b>, or any other type of user equipment suitable for accessing media, such as a non-portable gaming machine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to herein, collectively, as user equipment or user equipment devices. User equipment devices, on which a media guidance application is implemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of a network of devices. Various network configurations of devices may be implemented and are discussed in more detail below.

0056User television equipment <b>402</b> may include a set-top box, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellite television, a television set, a digital storage device, a DVD recorder, a video-cassette recorder (VCR), a local media server, or other user television equipment. One or more of these devices may be integrated to be a single device, if desired. User computer equipment <b>404</b> may include a PC, a laptop, a tablet, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PC media server, a PC media center, or other user computer equipment. The various devices may be connected together using wired or wireless connections, forming a local network. Media assets received by a stream selector of one device may be stored into another, the details of which are discussed in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 7</figref>. WEBTV is a trademark owned by Microsoft Corp. Wireless user communications device <b>406</b> may include PDAs, a mobile telephone, a portable video player, a portable music player, a portable gaming machine, or other wireless devices.

0057It should be noted that, with the advent of television tuner cards for PCs, WebTV, and the integration of video into other user equipment devices, the lines have become blurred when trying to classify a device as one of the above devices. In fact, each of user television equipment <b>402</b>, user computer equipment <b>404</b>, and wireless user communications device <b>406</b> may utilize at least some of the system features described above in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 3 and 7</figref> and, as a result, include flexibility with respect to the type of media content available on the device. For example, user television equipment <b>402</b> may be Internet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while user computer equipment <b>404</b> may include a tuner allowing for access to television programming. The media guidance application may also have the same layout on the various different types of user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of the user equipment. For example, on user computer equipment, the guidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a web browser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled down for wireless user communications devices. A user may access media assets offered by one or more web applications or web content providers, such as Hulu or Youtube, using the guidance application. Such media assets may further be stored in a user equipment device, such as a DVR, simultaneously along with television media assets requested by a user.

0058In system <b>400</b>, there is typically more than one of each type of user equipment device but only one of each is shown in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref> to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize more than one type of user equipment device (e.g., a user may have a television set and a computer) and also more than one of each type of user equipment device (e.g., a user may have a PDA and a mobile telephone and/or multiple television sets). Each user equipment device, as discussed in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 7</figref>, may receive one or more media assets provided by a variety of media content sources.

0059The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent media guidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices. Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and program favorites, programming preferences that the guidance application utilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, and other desirable guidance settings. Preferences, and/or favorites may be automatically determined by a content delivery system, such as a content delivery, based on monitored viewing data associated with the users. The content delivery system may use various correlation algorithms to identify viewing patterns that may present in the monitored viewing data. For example, if a user sets a channel as a favorite on, for example, the web site www.tvguide.com on their personal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as a favorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipment and user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, if desired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can change the guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless of whether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device. In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user, as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application. All of such collected and/or determined information about the various users may be used by the content delivery system to efficiently allocate media assets to transport streams so that a plurality of user requests for simultaneous storage of media assets may be accommodated.

0060The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network <b>414</b>. Namely, user television equipment <b>402</b>, user computer equipment <b>404</b>, and wireless user communications device <b>406</b> are coupled to communications network <b>414</b> via communications paths <b>408</b>, <b>410</b>, and <b>412</b>, respectively. Communications network <b>414</b> may be one or more networks including the Internet, a mobile phone network, mobile device (e.g., Blackberry) network, cable network, public switched telephone network, or other types of communications network or combinations of communications networks. BLACKBERRY is a service mark owned by Research In Motion Limited Corp. Paths <b>408</b>, <b>410</b>, and <b>412</b> may separately or together include one or more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-optic path, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g., IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wireless signals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path or combination of such paths. Path <b>412</b> is drawn with dotted lines to indicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref> it is a wireless path and paths <b>408</b> and <b>410</b> are drawn as solid lines to indicate they are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, if desired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be provided by one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a single path in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref> to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

0061Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipment devices, these devices may communicate directly with each other via communication paths, such as those described above in connection with paths <b>408</b>, <b>410</b>, and <b>412</b>, as well other short-range point-to-point communication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wireless paths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or other short-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is a certification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipment devices may also communicate with each other directly through an indirect path via communications network <b>414</b>.

0062System <b>400</b> includes media content source <b>416</b> and media guidance data source <b>418</b> coupled to communications network <b>414</b> via communication paths <b>420</b> and <b>422</b>, respectively. There may be additional media content sources such as media content source <b>722</b>, media content source <b>724</b>, and media content source <b>726</b>, as described in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 7</figref>. Each of the media content sources may provide the data associated with a media asset requested by a user. When a user requests simultaneous delivery of more than one media asset, such as three media assets, the content delivery system may receive data from the corresponding content source and modulate them using the same carrier frequency. The paths for delivering the data to the content delivery system may be paths <b>420</b> and <b>422</b> and may include any of the communication paths described above in connection with paths <b>408</b>, <b>410</b>, and <b>412</b>. Communications with the media content source <b>416</b> and media guidance data source <b>418</b> may be exchanged over one or more communications paths, but are shown as a single path in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref> to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of media content source <b>416</b> and media guidance data source <b>418</b>, but only one of each is shown in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref> to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The different types of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, media content source <b>416</b> and media guidance data source <b>418</b> may be integrated as one source device. Although communications between sources <b>416</b> and <b>418</b> with user equipment devices <b>402</b>, <b>404</b>, and <b>406</b> are shown as through communications network <b>414</b>, in some embodiments, sources <b>416</b> and <b>418</b> may communicate directly with user equipment devices <b>402</b>, <b>404</b>, and <b>406</b> via communication paths (not shown) such as those described above in connection with paths <b>408</b>, <b>410</b>, and <b>412</b>.

0063Media content source <b>416</b> may include one or more types of media distribution equipment including a television distribution facility, cable system head-end, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g., television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediate distribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demand media servers, and other media content providers. NBC is a trademark owned by the National Broadcasting Company, Inc.; ABC is a trademark owned by the ABC, INC.; HBO is a trademark owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Media; Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu LLC, and Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc. Content source <b>416</b> or <b>718</b> may be the originator of media content (e.g., a television broadcaster, a webcast provider, etc.) or may not be the originator of media content (e.g., an on-demand media content provider, an Internet provider of video content of broadcast programs for downloading, etc.). Media content source <b>416</b> may include cable sources, satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers, or other providers of media content. Media content source <b>416</b> may also include a remote media server used to store different types of media content (including video content selected by a user), in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems and methods for remote storage of media content, and providing remotely stored media content to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connection with Ellis et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/332,244, filed Jun. 11, 1999, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

0064Media guidance data source <b>418</b> may provide media guidance data, such as media listings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcast channels, media titles, media descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parental control ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information, actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos, etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, etc.), advertisement information (e.g., text, images, media clips, etc.), on-demand information, and any other type of guidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locate desired media selections.

0065When a user request simultaneous delivery of more than one media asset, the media guidance data source <b>418</b> may further include identification information about these linked media assets in the program information region of the media guidance application. As can be seen in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 6</figref>, a selection of media assets to be simultaneously delivered are linked and grouped as block <b>1</b>. The media guidance data source <b>418</b> may query a database associated with the content delivery system to access the variable value associated with the identification of these linked media assets. For example, these linked media assets may be the first block that the content delivery system is accommodating on that day. Thus, the data structure of this user request may have the value “<b>1</b>” in the variable “Block ID”. On a user's display, the media guidance application may display “Block <b>1</b>” as having the requested media assets, which is the same as what is stored in the content delivery system's database. However, in other embodiments, because the content delivery system keeps track of every user request, the identifications appearing on the guidance application can be different from the identification assigned in the data structure of the user request.

0066Media guidance application data may be provided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. In some embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-alone interactive television program guide that receives program guide data via a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed, trickle feed, or data in the vertical blanking interval of a channel). Program schedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the user equipment on a television channel sideband, in the vertical blanking interval of a television channel, using an in-band digital signal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitable data transmission technique. Program schedule data and other guidance data may be provided to user equipment or multiple analog or digital television channels. Program schedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the user equipment with any suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specified period of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to a request from user equipment, etc.). In some approaches, guidance data from media guidance data source <b>418</b> may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. For example, a guidance application client residing on the user's equipment may initiate sessions with source <b>418</b> to obtain guidance data when needed. Media guidance data source <b>418</b> may provide user equipment devices <b>402</b>, <b>404</b>, and <b>406</b> the media guidance application itself or software updates for the media guidance application.

0067Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-alone applications implemented on user equipment devices. In other embodiments, media guidance applications may be client-server applications where only the client resides on the user equipment device. For example, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as a client application or control circuitry <b>304</b> of user equipment device <b>300</b> and partially on a content delivery server as a server application (e.g., media guidance data source <b>418</b>). The guidance application displays may be generated by the media guidance data source <b>418</b> and transmitted to the user equipment devices. The media guidance data source <b>418</b> may also transmit data for delivery on the user equipment, which then generates the guidance application displays based on instructions processed by control circuitry.

0068Media guidance system <b>400</b> is intended to illustrate a number of approaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devices and sources of media content and guidance data may communicate with each other for the purpose of accessing media and providing media guidance. The present invention may be applied in any one or a subset of these approaches, or in a system employing other approaches for delivering media and providing media guidance. The following three approaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example of <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref>.

0069In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each other within a home network. As described earlier, each household may include networked DVRs and/or computers, each of which may be configured to store one or media assets received and decoded by a single stream selector. User equipment devices can communicate with each other directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemes describe above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similar device provided on a home network, or via communications network <b>414</b>. Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate different user equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may be desirable for various media guidance information or settings to be communicated between the different user equipment devices. For example, it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidance application settings on different user equipment devices within a home network, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/179,410, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types of user equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with each other to transmit media content. For example, a user may transmit media content from user computer equipment to a portable video player or portable music player.

0070There may exist a local application that monitors the viewing data associated with a user interacting with one device. The local application may communicate to a central processing circuitry of a user's equipment device. Such monitored viewing data may be locally interpreted by a correlation algorithm, such as the Cascade Correlation Algorithm and/or a machine learning algorithm, to extract viewership patterns from collected viewing data for one or more users. Alternatively, or in addition, each user equipment device may transmit the monitored viewing data server of the content delivery system upon a user's approval. The local application may do so for each member of a household. The content delivery system may use the monitored viewing data associated with each member of a household to predict the bandwidth demand for the entire household. In some embodiments, each household contains more than one stream selector, each of which is capable of receiving multiple media assets simultaneously. The local application may monitor user behavior associated with each stream selector to determine the overall bandwidth demand for the entire household. Combined with this data may be viewing data collected from each household in the same neighborhood, city, state, and/or any other geographical region. The content delivery system may then extract viewing patterns associated with each neighborhood, city, and/or state from the monitored data. The extracted viewing patterns may then be used by the content delivery system to ascertain the most efficient allocations of media assets to transport streams. The content delivery system may initialize the allocations depending on what day of the week, what time a day, what season of a year, etc. The initialization is also system dependent, where a SDV system may have its allocations of media assets to transport streams updated every hour. The update in allocations of media assets to transport streams may also depend on the viewing data.

0071In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment by which they access media content and obtain media guidance. For example, some users may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobile devices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidance application implemented on a remote device. For example, users may access an online media guidance application on a website via a personal computer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA or web-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g., recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidance application to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guide may control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with a media guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Various systems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where the user equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, is discussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/927,814, filed Aug. 26, 2004, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

0072In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outside a home can use their media guidance application to communicate directly with media content source <b>416</b> to access media content. Specifically, within a home, users of user television equipment <b>404</b> and user computer equipment <b>406</b> may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locate desirable media content. Users may also access the media guidance application outside of the home using wireless user communications devices <b>406</b> to navigate among and locate desirable media content.

0073It will be appreciated that while the discussion of media content has focused on video content, the principles of media guidance can be applied to other types of media content, such as music, images, etc.

0074In some embodiments, a user may utilize the media guidance application or other application to manage audio assets. For example, the audio assets may be part of a personal playlist, public playlist, internet radio, a web cast, a real-time stream or any other suitable source for audio assets. The term audio asset is defined herein as a binary representation of changes in air pressure through time to create sound. In certain embodiments, the audio assets may be digital audio assets. For the purpose of this invention, audio assets may include data in various formats such as: MP3, WAV, real-time audio broadcast, Dolby Stereo, Dolby Digital, Pulse Code Modulation (PCM), Audio interchange File Format (AIFF), Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC), Digital Theatre System (DTS), Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS), Windows Media Audio (WMA), The True Audio Lossless Codec (TTA), Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC), Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Apple Lossless (ALAC), OggPCM or any other suitable audio format.

0075In particular, a user may control selection and playback of audio assets with user equipment <b>402</b>, <b>404</b> or <b>406</b> or any other suitable user equipment. For example, a user may control audio assets from a personal playlist displayed on a television using a remote control. As another example, a user may control a real-time stream of an audio asset displayed on a computer screen using a QWERTY keyboard, mouse or a combination of both. As yet another example, a user may control a sportscast on a wireless communications device using a keypad, touch screen, trackball or scroll wheel. The audio assets and control mechanisms in each of the previous examples may be combined or interchanged.

0076Data associated with the audio assets may be stored directly on the user equipment or may be provided remotely by media content source <b>416</b>. In particular, an audio asset may be provided by the media content source, as a real-time stream of the audio asset, such as from an Internet source, or the audio asset may be accessed from a server in communication with the media content source. For example, a user may download a music file asset over the internet from a content delivery server to local storage <b>308</b> (<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref>). As another example, a user may stream a live sportscast from a sports content provider via communications network <b>414</b>.

0077The media guidance application may be used to associate audio assets with related visual media content for display during playback of the audio asset to provide an engaging visual experience to a user in addition to the auditory experience provided by the audio asset. For example, when a user selects the song “White Wedding” by Billy Idol for playback, a YouTube video showing a clip from the video game Rock Band in which “White Wedding” is played, may be associated with the song and displayed during playback of “White Wedding”. The term visual media content is defined herein as any human perceivable content that has been electronically captured. Visual media content may include video content, video clips, movies, a movie scene, articles, advertisements, chat sessions, video games, television shows, music videos, pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand (VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming media, downloadable media, Webcasts, etc.), album art, photos, and any other suitable type of visual media content known to those of skill in the art.

0078When a user selects an audio asset, or an audio asset is automatically selected from, for example, a playlist, a search may be performed to identify visual media content with meta-data related to meta-data associated with the selected audio asset. The search may be carried out by control circuitry <b>304</b> of user equipment device <b>300</b> (<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref>). For example, control circuitry <b>304</b> (<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref>) may search a source for title meta-data matching the title of a particular audio asset. For example, when the audio asset “Thriller” by Michael Jackson is selected for playback, a search by control circuitry <b>304</b> may result in finding that the title “Thriller” matches title meta-data for the music video for “Thriller.” As another example, the search may result in matching audio asset artist meta-data: “Michael Jackson” with artist meta-data corresponding to a video clip of Michael Jackson moonwalking. As another example, a search may be performed based on a date associated with the audio asset. A user may select an audio asset recorded in 1978 (e.g., “Lay Down Sally” by Eric Clapton). The control circuitry <b>304</b> may further make recommendations to a user based on historical data associated with a user's viewing habits. For example, the control circuitry <b>304</b> may first determine that on Tuesdays, a user has consistently selected “Sex &amp; the City” to be simultaneously delivered along with “Lost”. Thus the control circuitry <b>304</b> may send a reminder to a user before a Tuesday asking if he/she would like to receive the new episode of the “Sex &amp; the City” and “Lost” for an upcoming Tuesday simultaneously. The control circuitry <b>304</b> may search a source and retrieve visual media content corresponding to sporting events taking place in 1978. For example, a video clip of the 1978 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers may be identified as a result of the search by control circuitry <b>304</b>. The 1978 World Series visual media content may be associated with the audio asset “Lay Down Sally” by Eric Clapton and displayed during playback of “Lay Down Sally”. In certain embodiments, a user may define preferences for what results a search will return. For example, a user could specify that a search be performed based only on the title, artist of a particular audio asset, or historical viewing data of the user.

0079The source which is searched for visual media content may be any type of source capable of providing visual media content such as: a database, Internet, a hard drive, a remote device, mobile device, a server or any other suitable source. The identified visual content may be associated with the audio asset and displayed on the user equipment during playback of the audio asset. In particular, visual content may be associated with an audio asset by creating a hotlink, tag, identifier, by transferring one or both of the visual content and audio asset to a database, or any other suitable association method. For example, when visual media content, (e.g., a television show), is found to include a particular audio asset, a link to the server where the television show can be downloaded may be saved as meta-data linked to the audio asset. As another example, when visual media content, for example, a movie clip, is found to include a particular audio asset, the movie clip may be saved to a database with an identifier indicating that the movie clip is related to the particular audio asset. In yet another example, when visual media content is identified, the visual media content may be saved to a hard drive in a directory or folder related to the audio asset. Users may select multiple media assets provided by more than one media content source to be received and stored simultaneously as illustrated in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 5 and 6</figref>

0080<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 5 and 6</figref> show illustrative display of media menu screens <b>500</b> and <b>600</b> provided by a media guidance application in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. The media menu screen <b>500</b> may be presented to a user by the display <b>312</b>. The screen <b>500</b> may include a program information region <b>112</b>, navigational icons <b>120</b>, video region <b>122</b>, and advertisement <b>124</b>. As similarly described in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 1 and 2</figref>, a user may navigate among and locate desirable media content using media guidance application. A user may select a media asset, such as “Sex and the City” from a media content source, such as NBC, to be stored in the storage <b>308</b> of the user equipment <b>402</b>. If the equipment is configured to allow the user to simultaneously receive and store more than one media assets using one stream selector, the user may continue so select additional media assets. In the example shown in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 5</figref>, the user has also selected “Lost” and “The Hills” from two different media content sources, in addition to “Sex &amp; the City.” After selecting the media assets to be stored, the user may hit the “record” button on a user input device (e.g., a remote controller). The encoded infrared command may be transmitted to the user equipment device. The processing circuitry <b>306</b> may receive light pulses corresponding to the binary code of the user command. The processing circuitry may then transmit the command through the upstream transport stream to the content delivery system.

0081After receiving the user requests, the control circuitry of the content delivery server may initialize a data structure in a database for each user request. The data structure may include a variable to identify such a user request. For example, the control circuitry of the content delivery server may then initialize an indicator attribute within the data structure to indicate that the media assets are linked as a block of linked media assets. If the value of the variable contains is not zero, the control circuitry may process such a value as the identification of a block of linked media assets. The details of the data structure are explained in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 10</figref>. The control circuitry of the content delivery server may deliver such indication to a user's equipment device <b>402</b>, <b>716</b>, or <b>406</b> so that the user may be informed of the fact that the requested media assets have been linked as a block. Linking the media assets as a block of linked media assets is advantageous in that it acts as a flag to the control circuitry of the content delivery server so that, during reallocations of transport streams, the entire block of linked media assets need to be allocated to the same transport stream. As noted above, only media assets transporting on the same transport stream may be received and decoded by one stream selector as the stream selector can only tune to one carrier frequency.

0082Alternatively, or in addition, a media guidance application may ink the media assets together. The media guidance application may further create an indicator and transmit data bits reflecting such an indicator along with a user request binary strings using an upstream transport stream to the content delivery server. In other embodiments, the guidance application may send context information associated with a user-requested media asset to the control circuitry of the content delivery server. Alternatively, the guidance application may communicate with media guidance data source <b>418</b> to request context information related to the media asset be sent to the content delivery server. Context information may include: the time of the scheduled media asset, the type of media asset, etc. The control circuitry may further receive the MAC address of the user equipment device and/or model number of a user's equipment device. The content delivery server may determine if the user equipment device only contain one stream selector. Combining the context information with information about the type of user equipment device that a user has, the content delivery server may determine if the requested media assets need to be linked. In other words, using such information, the control circuitry of the content delivery server may determine if the user request involves simultaneous delivery of multiple media assets. The control circuitry of the content delivery system may also use such information to determine if a data structure needs to be created for the user request.

0083Using the example illustrated in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 5</figref>, “Sex &amp; the City,” “Lost,” and “The Hills” are media assets to be aired from 9:00 pm to 9:30 pm on Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010. The control circuitry of the content delivery server may access from one or more databases hosted on one or more storage devices of the above illustrative context information. The control circuitry may then determine that since the selected media assets are to be aired at the same time, the media assets would have to be linked if the user's equipment device contains one stream selector. The control circuitry may further query a database storing information about the number of stream selectors the equipment device may have by providing the MAC address and/or other identification number. Thus, after determining that the requested media assets be aired at the same time and that the user equipment device has only one stream selector, the user request requires simultaneous delivery of more than one media asset. Thus, the requested media assets need to be linked and form a block.

0084While the control circuitry of the content delivery system is initializing the data structure for this user request and ascertaining which transport stream should the block of linked media assets to be transported on, the media guidance application may prompt the user with “One Moment Please” message, as illustrated in the media menu screen <b>600</b>. A user can interrupt the control circuitry of the content delivery server from processing by, in one embodiment, pressing any key on a user input device. Such a request may have a higher priority than the previous user request. The control circuitry may detect a flip in bit, such an interrupt bit, that may indicate to the processor of the control circuitry to pause processing the user request. To ensure that the user did not interrupt the control circuitry by mistake, the control circuitry may transmit a notice to the user equipment device. The notice may prompt the to the user to confirm. Once a negative confirmation is received, the interrupt hit may be reset and the control circuitry may proceed with processing the previous request. Otherwise, the control circuitry of the content delivery server may delete the entry of the newly created data structure associated with the user request. Accordingly, screen <b>500</b> may be returned to the user.

0085Alternatively, while a user is waiting, the user may be prompted to an advertisement, such as advertisement <b>124</b>. The control circuitry may utilize correlation algorithms and/or recommendation engine to deliver a targeted advertisement based on the requested media assets. For example, an advertisement related to the show “Grey's Anatomy” may be presented to the user because a user who has selected “Sex &amp; the City” and “The Hills” is likely to be a female. Other information about the user who has requested these media assets may be stored in a database accessible by the control circuitry of the content delivery server. In other embodiments, a user can be presented with a list of previous requests that the user has made in the past to remind or recommend users of additional media assets that the user may wish to receive and store during this time slot.

0086Moreover, while the control circuitry is initializing various variables and/or arrays for a data structure associated with a user request, the media guidance application may further retrieve historical requests that the user has made for the same time slot. Such feature may be implemented locally or remotely to prompt the user if he/she would like to link those media assets as a block to be received simultaneously later today. In some other embodiments, the user has made a prior request to receive media assets at a time that at least partially overlaps in time with the recently requested media assets. Accordingly, the media guidance application would transmit binary strings representative of prior user requests to the content delivery system. If allocations of previously requested media assets to transport streams have been determined, the control circuitry may further retrieve such information from the database. The control circuitry may then determine a different transport stream for transporting all the requested media assets. The control circuitry may also combine the data structures of both the previous request and the recent request. By combining, the control circuitry may create a bigger block of linked media assets since a portion of such media assets is to be aired during at least a partially overlapping time period.

0087For example, on Thursday, July 15, a user may have requested to receive “The Office” and “House” from 9:30 pm to 10:30 pm on Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010. Before processing the user's recent request to record or store “Sex &amp; the City,” “Lost,” and “The Hills,” the control circuitry may first identify other user requests made by the user in past week. The control circuitry may query the database using the MAC address and/or any other identification information associated with the user equipment device to retrieve data associated with previous user requests. Once that data is received, the control circuitry may determine if media assets of multiple requests may be “bundled” together, creating a bigger block of linked media assets. To identify the most efficient method for allocations of transport streams, the control circuitry may further decide that reallocations may occur once a subset of a block has been accommodated.

0088<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 7</figref> is a simplified diagram <b>700</b> illustrating a content delivery server <b>702</b> processing user requests received from user equipment <b>720</b> in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. The diagram <b>700</b> may include the content delivery server <b>702</b>, which includes control circuitry <b>704</b>, a modulator <b>706</b>, a multiplexer <b>708</b> (hereinafter “mux”), and communication circuitry <b>710</b>, and is connected directly or indirectly to a storage device <b>712</b>. Diagram <b>700</b> also includes user equipment <b>720</b>, which includes the user television equipment <b>402</b>, user computer equipment <b>404</b>, and the wireless user communications device <b>406</b>. The diagram <b>700</b> further includes a content source <b>718</b>, which includes media content source <b>722</b>, media content source <b>724</b>, and media guidance data source <b>726</b>. User television equipment <b>402</b> may be user equipment device <b>300</b> as described with respect to <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref>. The content delivery server <b>702</b> may communicate with the content source <b>718</b>, the user equipment <b>720</b>, and the storage device <b>712</b> directly or indirectly via various communication mechanisms, such as, without limitations, wired connections, such as co-axial cables, CAT-5 cables, optical fibers, a hybrid fiber-coaxial cable (HFC), wireless connections such as satellites and radio waves.

0089In operation, the content delivery server <b>702</b> may receive a plurality of user's requests to receive simultaneous delivery of media assets into their respective user equipment. The requests may be transmitted to content delivery server <b>702</b> via communication paths <b>408</b> and may include information such as: the number of stream selectors (e.g., TV tuners) of a user equipment device, an identification number of a requested media asset, the MAC address associated with the user equipment device (e.g., cable modem), and/or any other information relevant to a user request.

0090In some embodiments, a user operating user equipment <b>402</b> may request the three media assets illustrated in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 5</figref> be simultaneously delivered by one stream selector. After the stream selector decodes the received compressed data, such as in MPEG-2, into data formats readable by video and/or audio graphics circuitry, the decoded data may be stored into one or more storage elements, such as DVRs. As described in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref>, a household may have several DVRs that are connected to one another creating a home network of DVRs. Part of the decoded data may also be stored into user computer equipment <b>404</b>, which may be a node of a home network. In some embodiments, media assets originated from a web content source or an internet provider may be stored automatically into user computer equipment <b>404</b>. The processing circuitry or control circuitry of the user equipment device containing the stream selector may include executable computer code to direct the traffic of the encoded data. Each DVR may be located in a different room to allow each member of a household to store a media asset of his/her choice.

0091Control circuitry <b>704</b> may link requested media assets as a block of linked media assets so that the entire block may be allocated to the same transport stream. After receiving this request, control circuitry <b>704</b> may assess the utilization of all the transport streams, examples of which are illustrated in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 8</figref>, <b>9</b>, and <b>13</b>, to determine which of the transport streams may be used to transport the requested media assets. The determination process may be based on the optimization algorithms described in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 12 and 13</figref>.

0092In some embodiments, after determining allocations of transport streams to maximize the efficient utilization of all the transport streams, control circuitry <b>704</b> would communicate with content source <b>718</b>. Communication circuitry <b>710</b> of content delivery server <b>702</b> may communicate with communication circuitry of media content source <b>722</b>, <b>724</b>, and <b>726</b> respectively. The communication circuitry <b>710</b> may receive signals associated with each media asset. The received signals may be forwarded to modulator <b>706</b> to be modulated according various modulation schemes, such as QAM. For media assets to be simultaneously transmitted to and received by user equipment <b>720</b>, signals of each media asset may be modulated using the same carrier frequency. The modulation may also incorporate amplitude and/or phase modulation in addition to frequency modulation, depending on the type of modulator is used. It should be noted that modulation of signals is well known in the art and may be made according to a variety of known signal processing algorithms. After modulating the signals received from one or more media content source, the modulated signals may be multiplexed onto the same transport stream to be delivered by any known communication infrastructure.

0093Using the example shown in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 5 and 6</figref>, the media content source <b>718</b> may include the television network NBC, which may provide the data for “Sex &amp; the City.” Similarly, content source <b>718</b> may include the media content source <b>724</b>, which may be the television network ABC that provides the data for “Lost.” Finally, there may exist another media content source, such as MTV, (not shown) for providing data for “The Hills.” Shortly before 9 pm on Tuesday, the communication circuitry <b>710</b> of the content delivery server <b>702</b> may receive data from the NBC, ABC, and MTV through communication paths, such as communication path <b>420</b>. The content delivery server <b>702</b> may then send the data received from each of the media content source to the modulator <b>706</b>. Finally, multiplexer <b>708</b> may multiplex the modulated signals into one transport stream to deliver the signals to the user's equipment device. Each user equipment system of the user equipment <b>720</b> may receive the signals delivered through various communication paths, such as the communication path <b>408</b>.

0094As an example, the delivered signals may arrive at stream selector <b>714</b> of user television equipment <b>402</b>, or stream selector <b>716</b> of user computer equipment <b>404</b>, or stream selector <b>730</b> of wireless user communications device <b>730</b>. The stream selector <b>714</b> may be a television tuner, such as a QAM tuner or ATSC tuner. Stream selector <b>714</b>, <b>716</b>, or <b>730</b> may then tune to the carrier frequency of the transport stream, which may be 110 MHz. The processing circuitry <b>306</b> of the user television equipment <b>402</b> may instruct the demodulator and a de-multiplexer (hereinafter “demux”) (not shown) to demodulate and de-multiplex the signals so that the video and audio signals are compatible with the video and audio formats for a digital and/or analog display. The demodulated and decoded signals may then be stored in the storage <b>308</b> of the user television equipment <b>402</b>.

0095In some other implementations, content source <b>718</b>, instead of the content delivery server <b>702</b>, may perform the modulation and multiplexing and may deliver signals associated with the requested media assets directly to the users. For example, control circuitry <b>704</b> can determine that transport stream with carrier frequency at 110 MHz has enough frequency bandwidth to transport the requested media assets. Communication circuitry <b>710</b> would encode the carrier frequency 110 MHz and transmit the encoded data to each media content source. Each media content source may then modulate signals associated with each media asset at the carrier frequency provided by control circuitry <b>702</b>. Thus, each media content source may modulate, multiplex, and transport data associated with a requested media asset to a user equipment device. Alternatively, content source <b>718</b> may transmit the modulated signals back to content delivery server <b>702</b>, which may multiplex the received signals onto the same physical delivery path, such as communication path <b>408</b>.

0096After receiving data associated with media assets “Sex &amp; the City,” “Lost,” and “The Hills” from 9 pm to 10 pm on Tuesday Jul. 20, 2010 by stream selector <b>714</b>, <b>716</b>, or <b>730</b>, the processing circuitry <b>306</b> may first de-multiplex the received signals. Processing circuitry <b>306</b> may further demodulate the received data using various well known signal processing methods. For example, processing circuitry <b>306</b> can first detect binary strings received by the stream selector as to the carrier frequency of the transport stream that was used to deliver the requested media assets. Processing circuitry may then create a digital band pass filter to filter other media content transported on the physical delivery path. That is, since the physical delivery path, such as a coaxial cable, may carry signals modulated using a wide arrange of carrier frequencies, there may be many other unwanted signals delivered to a stream selector <b>714</b>, <b>716</b>, or <b>730</b>. The band pass filter would filter signals modulated using the other carrier frequencies and leave behind only signals carried on the particular carrier frequency associated with the transport stream. Using the above example, the band pass filter would have a center frequency of 110 MHz and would keep signals with carrier frequency bandwidth about 6 MHz of the 110 MHz (e.g., 107 to 113 MHz).

0097After de-modulating the received signals, processing circuitry <b>306</b> may further decompress the digital data. The processing circuitry <b>306</b> may further process the uncompressed data into video and audio data formats compatible with a display or other user equipment device. Alternatively, the decompression and data conversion may be done by a dedicated video and/or audio signal processing card that is separate from processing circuitry <b>306</b> of user television equipment <b>402</b>. In other embodiments, converting uncompressed digital data into video and audio formats may be done by a co-processor, such as a graphics and/or audio card, or by a separate microprocessor to off-load work of processing circuitry <b>306</b>. The converted data that may be used by a display, such as a television display, computer, or mobile display, may receive the converted signal.

0098Converted data associated with “Sex &amp; the City” may be delivered to the DVR in the bedroom so that the mother of the family would be able to watch it at a later time, such as from 10 pm to 11 pm on the same day. Similarly, data associated with “Lost” may be sent to the DVR located in the living room to allow the father to watch it at the same time as the mother. Filially, data associated with “The Hills” may be sent to the DVR located in the teenager daughter's bedroom to allow her to watch her requested media asset. Each media asset may be stored in a different DVR or a user equipment device that contains a storage element, such as user equipment computer <b>716</b> and/or wireless user communications device <b>730</b>. The assignment device to a media asset may be pre-selected. However, since each DVR may be networked to one another, all the requested media assets may be first stored in a central storage element, such as one of the DVRs. A user may stream, through a local network (e.g., a home network), data associated with the media asset of his/her interest and watch the media asset directly from the central DVR. Depending on the applications and/or firmware installed on the DVR, each user may partition the DVRs and store one media asset across multiple DVRs. Alternatively, all media content may be stored in a single DVR. One or more user display devices may access data stored in the single DVR simultaneously or serially.

0099<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 8</figref> is an illustrative transport streams utilization graph <b>800</b> in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. Utilization graph <b>800</b> includes a transport stream <b>806</b> with a carrier frequency centered at around 110 MHz, transport stream <b>808</b> with a carrier frequency centered at around 116 MHz, transport stream <b>810</b> with a carrier frequency centered at around 122 MHz, transport stream <b>812</b> with a carrier frequency center at around 128 MHz, transport stream <b>814</b> with a carrier frequency center at around 224 MHz, and transport stream <b>816</b> with a carrier frequency center at around 1000 MHz. The utilization graph <b>800</b> includes a horizontal axis <b>802</b> and a vertical axis <b>804</b>. Horizontal axis <b>802</b> represents the carrier frequency of each transport stream. Vertical axis <b>804</b> assumes that each transport stream may transport ten media assets and represents the amount of bandwidth within each transport stream. It is also assumed that all media assets require the same amount of bandwidth within a transport stream to simplify illustration. However, it should be noted that the amount of bandwidth required by one HD media asset is approximately the same as the amount of bandwidth needed for four media assets. Thus, if a user's requested media asset is in HD format, processing circuitry <b>704</b> would determine the bandwidth accordingly (e.g., identifying available bandwidth enough to transport 4 SD media assets).

0100According to some implementations, each transport stream occupies a 6 MHz bandwidth, assuming the modulation scheme used by a content delivery is 256-bit QAM. Each transport stream may deliver data at about 38.8 Mbps and can support up to ten digital media assets on a single transport stream. Therefore, the downstream speed for each media asset is about 3.8 Mbps. As an example, transport stream <b>806</b> may be currently transporting 5 media assets occupying a total of 19.4 Mbps bandwidth. As another example, transport stream <b>808</b> may be currently transporting 10 media assets occupying the entire 38.8 Mbps bandwidth of a transport stream.

0101Each media asset currently transported on a transport stream, such as the transport stream <b>808</b>, may be associated with a Packet Identifier, PID, assuming the data were compressed (e.g., MPEG-2). Each media asset may have its own unique PID in which the first few digits define the “main” channel or transport stream that the media assets are being transported on. For example, a media asset can have a PID of 18.1. Number “18” may represent transport stream <b>808</b> with a carrier frequency centered around 116 MHz. The “sub-number” or the “elementary stream number” after the period is used to differentiate one media asset from another transported on the same transport stream. This way, processing circuitry <b>306</b> of user television equipment system <b>402</b> may use the PID identified in the compressed data to extract data associated with a particular media asset. Finally, data with the same PID may be constructed together to form the overall received data of a media asset.

0102As an example, since data associated with “Sex &amp; the City,” “Lost,” and “The Hills” are all being transported on the same transport stream with a carrier frequency at around 116 MHz, “Sex &amp; the City” may be given a PID of 18.1. The “18” may designate transport stream <b>808</b> and the “1” may allow a decoder to differentiate data transported on the same transport stream. In this case, the “1” may allow a decoder to uniquely identify data associated with “Sex &amp; the City,” as opposed to “Lost,” which may have a PID of “18.2.” Similarly, “The Hills” may be assigned a PID of “18.3.” Processing circuitry <b>306</b> of user television equipment <b>402</b> may use the PID associated with each one of the media assets to identify whether the received data is associated with “Sex &amp; the City,” “Lost,” or “The Hills”. During transport stream allocations, as discussed in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 11 and 12</figref>, control circuitry <b>704</b> of content delivery server <b>702</b> may include an array of PIDs in a data structure associated with each user's request.

0103Utilization graph <b>800</b> may be displayed to an operator of a content delivery system. Alternatively, the utilizations of all transport streams are periodically updated and the amount of available bandwidth with each transport stream may also be calculated periodically. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may retrieve availability data associated with each transport stream to determine which transport stream is available and/or most optimal for transporting a block of linked media assets, according to the algorithms illustrated in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 11 and 12</figref>. Using the above example in which media assets “Sex &amp; the City”, “Lost”, and “The Hills” are to be simultaneously delivered and stored, control circuitry <b>704</b> may first link these media assets, and then initialize a new data structure for this user request. In determining which transport stream these linked media assets should be allocated to, control circuitry <b>704</b> may call an allocation function or subroutine, as illustrated in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 11 and 12</figref>, to identify a first available transport stream, such as transport stream <b>806</b>. In other embodiments, where the demand for bandwidth is high, especially during a peak time period, control circuitry <b>704</b> may identify transport stream <b>814</b> in which the available bandwidth is exactly the same as the amount needed to transport the three media assets. In other words, control circuitry <b>704</b> may either search for the first transport stream with available bandwidth to transport the requested media assets or, it may continue to search for a transport stream with the least amount of available bandwidth.

0104However, if bandwidths needed exceed the bandwidth currently available in any of the transport stream, control circuitry <b>704</b> may request reallocation of media assets currently being transported to create enough bandwidth to transport the selected media assets, the details of which are described in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 12</figref>. For example, a user may have selected to receive seven media assets simultaneously. However, transport streams with the most available amount of bandwidth can only afford to transport five. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine that reallocation is needed in order to transport the seven media assets simultaneously. As illustrated in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 9</figref>, control circuitry <b>704</b> may invoke the reallocation algorithm, or optimization algorithm, to create enough bandwidth to transport the seven media assets requested by the user.

0105Alternatively, control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine that the five media assets previously being transported on transport stream <b>806</b> are not linked, or only some of the media assets are linked, the application <b>804</b> may identify available bandwidth in other transport streams to transport each of the blocks of linked media assets. For example, the five media assets may include two blocks of linked media assets in which block <b>1</b> has two linked media assets and block <b>2</b> has three linked media assets. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may, using its allocation subroutines, identify that transport stream <b>816</b> has enough bandwidth to transport block <b>1</b> while transport stream <b>814</b> has enough bandwidth to transport block <b>2</b>. The process of identifying a transport stream with available bandwidth to transport a requested block of linked media assets is described in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 11 and 12</figref>.

0106For every user request involving simultaneous delivery of more than one media asset, control circuitry <b>704</b> may initialize a new data structure for the user request. <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 10</figref> illustrates a table <b>1000</b> containing exemplary data structures associated with three user requests to simultaneously deliver more than one media asset. Each request may be identified by its “Block ID” <b>1002</b>, indicating to control circuitry <b>704</b> that media assets with a Block ID are linked and need to allocated to the same transport stream. As an example, table <b>1000</b> illustrates data structures <b>1014</b>, <b>1016</b>, and <b>1018</b>. Each exemplary data structure includes several variables, such as Block ID <b>1002</b>, Bandwidth Needed <b>1004</b>, Status <b>1006</b>, MAC Addresses <b>1008</b>, Transport Stream <b>1010</b>, and arrays of PIDs of Media Assets <b>1012</b>. Bandwidth Needed <b>1004</b> is a variable of a data structure that may indicate to control circuitry <b>704</b> the amount of bandwidth the linked media assets of a particular block would need. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may pass this value as a parameter to a subroutine, or function, for determining which transport stream may contain enough bandwidth to transport these linked media assets as a whole, or block. Status <b>1006</b> is a variable that allows control circuitry <b>704</b> to determine whether a particular user request has been accommodated. This is so that control circuitry <b>704</b> may identify all user requests with media assets that have not been allocated. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may examine the bandwidth needed for each “Not_Delivered” user request to calculate a total amount of bandwidth needed to accommodate all user requests. In some embodiments, when not all user requests can be accommodated, control circuitry <b>704</b> can divide a block into sub-blocks and inform a user that some of his/her media assets may not be simultaneously transport to his/her stream selector.

0107Data structures <b>1014</b>, <b>1016</b>, <b>1018</b> may further include a variable that keeps track of a user equipment's MAC addresses. As mentioned earlier, each cable modem, which may supply content for both television programming and/or internet, may have its own unique MAC address. Control circuitry <b>1008</b> may query a database using the MAC address to determine the number of stream selectors that a user equipment device may have. If a user's equipment device has more than one stream selector and the number of requested media assets do not exceed the maximum number of media assets that these stream selectors may be able to receive (e.g., 20 media assets total for two stream selectors, control circuitry <b>704</b> may link media assets according to which stream selector may receive the media assets. Thus, variable “Block ID” may further contain sub-block number (e.g., 1.1 and 1.2) to indicate that a user request includes two blocks of simultaneous delivery of linked media assets, because the user equipment device has two stream selectors.

0108Data structures <b>1014</b>, <b>1016</b>, and <b>1018</b> may further include a variable “Transport Stream.” The identification and determination of which transport stream is used to transport which block of linked media assets are discussed in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 11 and 12</figref>. Once a transport stream is identified, control circuitry <b>704</b> may update the value. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may query a list of all the blocks of linked media assets scheduled to be transported on a particular transport stream. It should be noted that value contained in variable “Transport Stream” may be updated frequently, especially when reallocation occurs. Finally, as described earlier, each media asset allocated to a transport stream may be given a unique PID to allow the demodulator and/or decoder to uniquely identify data associated with each media asset. Each data structure may include an array of “PIDs of Media Assets” so that media asset is given its own unique DID.

0109As an example, control circuitry <b>704</b> may initialize data structure <b>1014</b> for a user's request to simultaneously deliver “Sex &amp; the City”, “Lost”, and “The Hills” from 9 pm to 10 pm on Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010. Data structure <b>1014</b> may include a value of “1” for the variable “Block ID” <b>1014</b> to unique identify this user request. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may calculate the amount of bandwidth needed to transport the block of these linked media assets. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may either communicate with a media content source to obtain such information. The amount of bandwidth for transporting these three linked media assets may be 11.6 Mbps <b>1022</b>. Once control circuitry <b>704</b> may pass the value “11.6 Mbps” <b>1022</b> to the subroutine for determining which transport stream may have bandwidth greater or equal to 11.6 Mbps. After identifying an available transport stream, which may be the transport stream with a carrier frequency centered around 110 MHz, variable “Transport Stream” for data structure <b>1014</b> may receive a value of “110 MHz” <b>1026</b>. Finally, after determining which transport stream the requested media assets will be transported on, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine the PIDs <b>1028</b> associated with each media asset and store the information in the array of PIDs of Media Assets. At some point after the end of air time for the three linked media assets, control circuitry <b>704</b> may update the value of variable “status” <b>1006</b> to be “Delivered.” Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then discard data structure <b>1014</b> from the database.

0110Depending on the “size” of the block of media assets, some blocks require less bandwidth, while others may require more. As indicated by variable Bandwidth Needed <b>1004</b> of data structure <b>1016</b>, control circuitry <b>704</b> may calculate that the linked media assets to be delivered only require 7.7 Mbps. Such a block may require relatively less bandwidth than other blocks, control circuitry <b>704</b> may defer transporting these media assets the other blocks are allocated first. To do so, control circuitry <b>704</b> may periodically sort data structures based on one or more variable values, such as “Bandwidth Needed” <b>1022</b> to first accommodate blocks, or user requests, that require the most bandwidth. If data associated with the media assets have not been delivered, the value of variable “Status” <b>1006</b> of data structure <b>1016</b> may be “Not_Delivered.” It should be noted that, depending on the programming language used, “Delivered” or “Not_Delivered” may simply be a single bit that may toggle between “0” or “1.” As yet another example, a user may request 10 media assets be simultaneously delivered and stored, which may be the maximum number of media assets that a transport stream can transport (assuming 256-bit QAM and MPEG-2 for compression). Control circuitry <b>704</b> may allocate a transport stream with a higher carrier frequency, such as 1000 MHz, to transport the requested media assets.

0111Using data structures associated with each user request, control circuitry <b>704</b> may quickly determine which transport stream is available or optimal for transporting media assets of a request. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may query database <b>712</b> storing the data structures for a list of transport streams and the media assets currently allocated to each transport stream. If desired, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may also output a utilization graph as seen in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIGS. 8 and 9</figref>. It should be noted that data structures illustrated in table <b>1000</b> may only be applicable so a user's request involving simultaneous delivery of linked media assets. A more general data structure may be created to also include other user requests. It should be noted that control circuitry <b>704</b> may sort data contained in any of the variables in the illustrative data structures to extract a user's viewing patterns. For example, control circuitry <b>704</b> may sort data based on MAC address to identify all the viewing history of a user or a household. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then utilize this information to identify the media assets that the household has requested during a period of time. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may further determine how often the household has requested the same media assets during the same time period, etc.

0112If a user decides to revise his/her request, such as to remove the show “Hills” from the block of three linked media assets, control circuitry <b>704</b> may update in the data structure associated with the request. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may delete the previous data structure from the database and create a new block, such as block <b>4</b> with “Block ID” <b>1002</b> “<b>4</b>.” In the new data structure associated with block <b>4</b>, control circuitry would only have “Sex &amp; the City” and “Lost” be linked together. Alternatively, control circuitry <b>704</b> may update the values in all the variables of data structure <b>1014</b> reflect such a change. An update in data structure variable values may trigger control circuitry <b>704</b> to call the allocation algorithms by first re-assessing the utilizations of all transport streams. The allocation algorithms and/or re-allocation optimization algorithm may then identify a new transport stream to transport the new block of linked media assets, which require less bandwidth than before. Doing so would create available bandwidths in the previous transport stream for accommodating another user request.

0113As described earlier, control circuitry <b>704</b> may identify multiple user requests originated from the same user that may contain media assets to be simultaneously delivered at the same time. That is, a user may have requested other media assets to be simultaneously delivered during the same time period as media assets requested in a later request. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may group toe requested media assets associated with the two requests. In some embodiments, control circuitry <b>704</b> can first search through the transport streams to determine if there is enough bandwidth in any of the transport streams to transport media assets associated with the first and second request. If there is enough bandwidth, control circuitry <b>704</b> may initialize a new data structure to combine data stored in each of data structures associated with the respective user requests. Each variable and/or array of the new data structure may retain values associated with each of the two requests, or blocks. For example, control circuitry <b>704</b> may first retrieve values stored in each variable of data structures <b>1014</b> and <b>1016</b>. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may calculate a new total amount of needed bandwidth to be stored in variable Bandwidth Needed <b>1004</b> of the new data structure, such as data structure <b>1018</b>. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may compare the values stored in the variable “MAC Addresses” and may determine that these user requests originated from the same user equipment device. Finally, control circuitry <b>704</b> may allocate the media assets of both requests to the same transport stream, such as the transport stream with a carrier frequency centered at 100 MHz. After data stored in data structures <b>1014</b> and <b>1016</b> are merged, control circuitry <b>704</b> may delete these data structures. Alternatively, control circuitry <b>704</b> may keep these data structures so that a correlation algorithm and/or viewing pattern recognition algorithm can be caned to determine viewing patterns associated with these user requests.

0114In some other embodiments, control circuitry <b>704</b> may not initialize a new data structure to include data stored in data structures <b>1014</b> and <b>1018</b>. Instead, control circuitry may initialize a new variable in data structure <b>1014</b> and <b>1016</b> to indicate that these two data structures and/or requests are linked. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may first detect that more than one user request has originated from a user equipment device with the same MAC address. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then communicate with one or media content source associated with the media asset to retrieve information about the time that each requested media assets is scheduled to air. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then determine that the air time associated with one media asset or more at least partially overlaps with air time of another media asset. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then initialize a new variable to be included in data structure <b>1014</b> and <b>1016</b>. The new variable may include values that can be interpreted by control circuitry <b>704</b> as an indicator or linker. The value stored in the new variable may be interpreted by control circuitry <b>704</b> as a linker or an indicator. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may include values stored in the new variable as an indicator that media assets associated with each of the data structures are linked. Shortly before one of the media assets with the same air time as one other media asset is delivered to the user equipment device, control circuitry <b>704</b> may change the value stored in variable Transport stream <b>1010</b> of both data structures <b>1014</b> and <b>1016</b> so that the media assets are to be delivered using the same transport stream. This way, a user may receive at least two media assets simultaneously even though the request for each of the two media assets were sent at a different time.

0115It should be noted that media assets associated with the two user requests may be the same and/or different media assets. In some embodiments, one of the media assets associated with a first request is different from the media assets associated with the second request. Thus, control circuitry <b>704</b> may identify a transport stream with available bandwidth that is greater than what was allocated to media assets of the first or second request. To simultaneously transport media assets of both requests, control circuitry <b>704</b> may calculate the amount of bandwidth needed to transport all the distinct media assets associated with the two user requests. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then identify a transport stream with enough bandwidth to transport these media assets of both requests.

0116<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 11</figref> is a flow diagram <b>1100</b> of an allocation algorithm for determining allocations of transport streams in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. Flow diagram <b>1100</b> begins at step <b>1102</b>. For example, communication circuitry <b>710</b> of content delivery server <b>702</b> may receive a user request to simultaneously deliver more than one media asset. On the request is received, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may initialize a data structure for this request, an example of which can be seen in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 10</figref>. Control circuitry <b>702</b> may receive additional information associated with the user, such as, the MAC address of a user equipment device. Using the MAC address and/or other information, control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine that the user equipment device has only one stream selector. Thus, control circuitry <b>704</b> may decide that the requested media assets need to be linked so they may be delivered using the same transport stream, or modulated using the same carrier frequency.

0117At step <b>1104</b>, control circuitry <b>704</b> may link the requested media assets and create a block identifier for the linked media assets. Circuitry <b>704</b> may first identify the media content source that is providing one of the requested media assets. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then create arrays of PIDs of media assets. Although the actual PID of each media may not be determined at this step as the transport stream has not been identified, control circuitry <b>704</b> may create a variable within an array for each media content source. As illustrated in <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 10</figref>, media content source NBC may be initialized as a variable. Creating such an array of PID may as a “link” for control circuitry <b>704</b>. That is, control circuitry <b>704</b> may interpret the initialization of variables as an indication that these media assets are linked.

0118At step <b>1106</b>, control circuitry <b>704</b> may calculate the bandwidths needed to transport the linked media assets. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may update the value in the data structure associated with the user request, such as 11.6 Mps <b>1022</b>. Calculating bandwidths needed to transport the linked media assets may involve communicating with one or more media content sources. Communication circuitry <b>710</b> may receive information from media content sources, such as whether the media asset is in SD or HD. If a media asset is in SD, then it may require only a tenth of the amount of bandwidth associated with each transport stream. However, if a media asset is in HD, then it may require more. Similarly, if the media asset contains only audio data, as opposed to both video and audio, the media asset would require less bandwidth than an SD media asset. However, a HD audio media asset may require as much as a SD media asset with video. It should be noted that various types of media assets exist and control circuitry <b>704</b> would either receive such information directly from media content sources or infer such information indirectly.

0119Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then proceed to identify whether there exists an empty stream at step <b>1106</b>. That is, control circuitry <b>704</b> may first attempt to identify if there exists a transport stream that is currently not transporting any media assets. For example, control circuitry <b>704</b> may first assess the utilization of all transport streams by query of a database. As mentioned earlier, control circuitry <b>704</b> may sort variable values stored in variable “Transport Stream” of a data structure. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may further process the sorted data by merging all data structures associated with the same transport stream. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may add variable values stored in the variable “Bandwidth Needed” <b>1004</b> of each data structure for each transport stream and calculate a total amount of bandwidth that is available in each transport stream. In some embodiments, control circuitry <b>704</b> can initialize a new variable and/or new data structure to store the amount of available bandwidth for each transport stream. It should be noted that this process may be done periodically, or it may be triggered by receiving a user request. If the available bandwidth for each transport stream has been periodically determined, control circuitry <b>704</b> may quickly identify which transport stream is not transporting any media assets, or is empty.

0120If a user request was done shortly before the requested media assets are to be aired or stored, control circuitry <b>704</b> may allocate the block of linked media assets to the empty transport stream at step <b>1110</b>. This is because it may require less system resources for control circuitry <b>704</b> to identify an empty transport stream. Depending on current bandwidth demand and/or the foreseeable bandwidth demand for the near future, control circuitry <b>704</b> may decide not to utilize the empty transport stream. After identifying and selecting the empty transport stream, control circuitry <b>704</b> may update the variable value of the variable “Transport Stream.” <b>1010</b> in a data structure at step <b>1130</b>.

0121In other embodiments, as mentioned previously, the amount of bandwidth available in each transport stream is determined periodically. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may simply query database stored in delivery device <b>712</b> for a list of empty transport streams. However, in some embodiments, the amount of bandwidth available in each transport stream is not determined periodically. In other embodiments, control circuitry may not have identified an empty transport stream. Thus, control circuitry <b>704</b> may proceed to step <b>1112</b> to scan all transport streams and determine the amount of available bandwidth in each of the transport streams.

0122At step <b>1112</b>, control circuitry may determine the available bandwidth in each transport stream as described above in connection with identifying an empty transport stream. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may sort the data structures associated with ail the user requests received on a day or during a defined time period. The sorting may be done based on values contained in the variable “Transport Stream” <b>1010</b>. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may access values stored in the variable “Bandwidth. Needed” <b>1004</b> for each data structure to determine the amount of bandwidth that has been utilized in each transport stream. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may subtract the total from the maximum amount of bandwidth of a transport stream, such as 38.8 Mbps.

0123In one embodiment, the control circuitry <b>704</b> can scan the transport streams from low to high frequency, or vice versa. Alternatively, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may use historical data to determine which transport stream to scan first. For example, the channel line-up may be similar for every Monday in a particular region and therefore, the system may use such information to estimate which transport stream may be available during a time period and would begin determining the utilization of the identified transport stream first and move onto other transport streams. In other embodiments, the scanning process may be done periodically regardless whether there is a request for simultaneous delivery. That is, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may periodically check and determine the availability of each transport stream and store such information in a database so that at step <b>1112</b>, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may only need to query the availability data of each transport stream from the database.

0124After determining the amount of available bandwidth that exist in each transport stream, control circuitry <b>704</b> may search for a transport stream with enough bandwidth greater or equal to the needed bandwidth, step <b>1120</b>. At this step, it should be noted that control circuitry <b>704</b> is configured to search through non-empty transport streams. In some instances, a plurality of transport streams may contain enough bandwidth for transporting the block. However, in other instances, only a few transport streams may have enough bandwidth. In these instances, control circuitry <b>704</b> may be configured to search for a first transport stream that has enough bandwidth and allocate the block to this transport stream. For example, control circuitry <b>704</b> may use historical data and allocate the media assets to the same transport stream as the one determined a week ago.

0125At step <b>1122</b>, if control circuitry <b>704</b> determines that maximizing the utilization of all transport streams is not necessary (step <b>1122</b>), control circuitry <b>704</b> may allocate the block of linked media assets to the first identified transport stream (step <b>1126</b>). During low bandwidth demand hours, maximizing stream utilization may not be a major concern to content delivery server <b>702</b>. Therefore, to off-load processing work done by control circuitry <b>704</b>, control circuitry <b>704</b> may allocate the first identified transport stream with enough bandwidth to transport the linked media assets. In other instances, a situation may require control circuitry <b>704</b> to identify an available transport stream as soon as possible. For example, a user may submit a request shortly before the requested media assets will air. Thus, to save time and to quickly accommodate the user request, control circuitry may allocate the requested media assets to a first available transport stream.

0126However, control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine that utilizations of most transport streams are near the maximum, or there may be a future rise in bandwidth demand. Thus, control circuitry <b>704</b> may decide to maximize stream utilization. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then proceed to step <b>1124</b> to identify a transport stream with a least amount of available bandwidth. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may simply query the database storing a list of data structure associated with each transport stream. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may order the transport streams based on the value stored in a variable “Available Bandwidth.” Alternatively, control circuitry <b>704</b> may compare bandwidth of one transport stream iteratively against bandwidth of another transport stream, until a transport stream with less available bandwidth is identified. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may discard the transport streams with more available bandwidth from a future list of transport streams for the iterative comparison. Subsequently, control circuitry <b>704</b> may iteratively compare the bandwidth of the identified transport stream with all other transport streams.

0127Using the examples above, Control circuitry <b>804</b> may first retrieve the value stored in the variable “Bandwidth Needed” in data structure <b>1014</b>. Control circuitry <b>804</b> may determine that given the kind of data formats of “Sex &amp; the City,” “Lost,” and “The Hills,” Block <b>1</b> requires 11.6 Mbps of bandwidth from 9 pm to 10 pm on Tuesday July 20. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then calculate the bandwidth available in all the transport streams that are currently transport at least one other media asset, according to the description above. Thus, control circuitry <b>704</b> may identify a list of transport streams, such as transport streams <b>806</b>, <b>812</b>, <b>814</b>, and <b>816</b>, that have at least 11.6 Mbps available. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may further sort the list of transport streams according to the available bandwidth in each of the transport stream. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then select the transport stream appearing on the top of the list, such as stream <b>814</b>, as the transport stream to transport block <b>1</b>. Thus, instead of allocating these 3 linked media assets to transport stream <b>806</b>, which may be identified first by the application <b>804</b>, the application <b>804</b> may decide to allocate block <b>1</b> to the transport stream <b>814</b> with the least amount of available bandwidth that is enough to transport the linked media assets. This way, toe application <b>804</b> may set aside transport streams <b>806</b> or <b>812</b> to accommodate blocks of media assets that demand more bandwidth in each transport stream (e.g., 5 linked media assets).

0128At step <b>1128</b>, control circuitry <b>704</b> may then allocate the three linked media assets to transport stream <b>814</b>. After allocation, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may further update the variable values in the data structure associated with the user request at step <b>1130</b>.

0129However, at step <b>1120</b>, if control circuitry <b>704</b> determines that there is not a transport stream with enough bandwidth for transporting the block of linked media assets, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may proceed to step <b>1132</b> to determine if reallocations will create enough space. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may calculate the sum of all the remaining bandwidth in each of the transport streams. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may then determine if the total amount of available bandwidth in all transport streams is greater than the amount of bandwidth needed to transport the linked media assets. If reallocations can create enough space to transport the block of linked assets, control circuitry <b>704</b> may invoke the reallocations algorithm (step <b>1134</b>), the details of which are described in connection with <figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 12</figref>.

0130However, control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine that reallocations will not be able to create enough space in any transport stream to transport the block of linked media assets. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may look up the value of the variable MAC address <b>1008</b> and send a conflict message to the user at the identified MAC address (step <b>1136</b>). As an example, the conflict message may indicate to the user that the request cannot be accommodated at this time and that be can resolve such a conflict by either reducing the number of media assets that he/she wishes to simultaneously deliver. Alternatively, the content delivery may attempt to accommodate this request at a later time once a transport stream has enough available bandwidth.

0131<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 12</figref> is a flow diagram of an optimization algorithm for reallocations of transport streams in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. The control circuitry <b>704</b> may invoke the optimization algorithm at step <b>1134</b> by sending a request for reallocations of transport streams. The control circuitry <b>704</b> may then first identify a transport stream with the most amount of free space, such as the transport streams <b>806</b> or <b>812</b>. As an example, assuming a user has requested that a block of (hereinafter block A) <b>7</b> media assets be stored simultaneously, the application server <b>704</b> would search through the data structures associated with each media asset contained in the transport stream <b>806</b> and <b>812</b> to identify a block of media assets (hereinafter block B) that may be removed from the transport stream <b>806</b> or <b>812</b> so that the transport streams <b>806</b> or <b>812</b> may then have enough bandwidth to transport block A (step <b>1204</b>). That is, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may first identify a block B so that once block B is removed, the amount of available bandwidth that already exists in a transport stream, (such as 19.9 Mbps in transport streams <b>806</b> and <b>812</b>) and the amount of bandwidth that will become available once block B is removed would be enough to transport block A. However, it is not optimal to swap block A with B if B requires more bandwidth to transport because otherwise, the content delivery would now have to allocate bandwidth to transport a block that requires more bandwidth than before. Therefore, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine, at step <b>1204</b>, if the amount of bandwidth needed to transport block B is more than the amount of bandwidth needed to transport block A.

0132If the control circuitry <b>704</b> determines that block B in the transport stream with the most available bandwidth is in fact bigger than block A containing the 7 media assets the user has requested, the algorithm may then proceed to step <b>1210</b> to determine if there is another transport stream with the next most amount of bandwidth, such as transport stream <b>816</b>. Eventually, if no transport stream contains a block B such that the already-available bandwidth plus the bandwidth of block B would be enough to transport block A, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may proceed to step <b>1136</b> to prompt a user with a conflict message. However, if the control circuitry <b>704</b> identifies a next transport stream with next most amount of already-available bandwidth (step <b>1206</b>), such as transport stream <b>816</b>, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may then repeat the process by returning to step <b>1204</b> to again assess whether there exists a block B in the newly identified transport that may create enough bandwidth for transporting block A.

0133However, if the existing block B, which may include a combination of unit blocks (block C with 1 media assets and Block D with 1 linked media assets), is not larger than new block A at step <b>1208</b>, the application <b>304</b> may swamp Block A with B. That is, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may de-allocate Block B from its current transport stream and allocate Block A to the transport stream. As an example, if the control circuitry <b>704</b> determines that block B is only a block of 2 linked media assets, but the removal of which would create enough bandwidth for transport stream <b>806</b> to transport block A with 7 media assets, the control circuitry <b>704</b> would de-allocate block B and allocate block A to the transport stream <b>806</b>. Thus, the user who has requested these 7 media assets may now be able to receive and store these media assets using a single stream selector simultaneously.

0134After de-allocating block B from its transport stream, the application server <b>704</b> may then identify which new transport stream should be used to transport block B. First, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine if Block B consists of a combination of blocks (step <b>1214</b>). As mentioned earlier, Block B may consist of block C and block D. Using the above example, block C and D may be single media asset which when removed altogether would create enough bandwidth to transport block A. If B consist of a combination of blocks, the application server <b>704</b> may identify a transport stream for each block within block B (<b>1216</b>). Since the amount of bandwidth needed to transport the entire block B is less than the amount of bandwidth needed to transport block A, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may now only need to identify a transport stream with a smaller amount of available bandwidth, making the allocations of all simultaneous delivery requests more likely. However, after determining that block B does not consist of a combination of blocks, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may rename block B as a new block A and would proceed to step <b>1106</b> to calculate the amount of bandwidth needed to transport the linked media assets stored in block B, which should be less than the amount needed for transporting block A. Over time, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may monitor every user request and information related to the request so that the control circuitry <b>704</b> can better predict bandwidth demands and allocate transport streams according to the monitored historical data. The control circuitry <b>704</b> may predict demands for an entire and/or the coming hours and use such prediction to determine initializations of transport stream allocations.

0135<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 13</figref> illustrates examples of viewing data <b>1300</b> used for determining channel line-up during initialization of allocations of transport streams in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. The illustrative viewing data <b>1300</b> includes a column of Media Content Source <b>1320</b>, which may include NBC <b>1322</b>, CNBC <b>1324</b>, ABC <b>1326</b>, FOX <b>1329</b>, MTV1 <b>1330</b>, MTV2 <b>1332</b>, Youtube <b>1334</b>, and On Demand <b>1336</b>. Each network, such as NBC <b>1322</b>, may be a media content source, such as the media content source <b>722</b>. The control circuitry <b>704</b> may monitor viewing data associated with a plurality of users and store historical data associated with each media source and/or users in the storage device <b>712</b>.

0136The historical data may include: without limitations, information about what time of a day most users request media assets from a media content source, what types of media assets are frequently requested from a media content source (e.g., talk show vs. soap operas), the number of users that request media assets from a media content source during an entire day or a part of day, the demographics information associated with users who requested simultaneous delivery of media assets from a media content source, how often a particular user repeats his/her request patterns, how often a user views the requested media asset, ratings, such as Nielsen's ratings associated with the media content source and/or a particular media asset offered by the media content source, and/or any other information that a content delivery system may use to determine and predict bandwidth demand for simultaneous delivery of linked media assets during a particular time period on a day.

0137Before determining the initialization of transport stream allocations, to better predict or estimate bandwidth demands that the content delivery may face during a time period, such as from 9 pm to 10 pm on a Tuesday, the content delivery system may further calculate weighted scores for each media content source during a particular time period on a day. The aggregate of all weighted scores collected for each time period of the day may also be used to determine the transport stream allocations.

0138As an example, some time before Tuesday August 20, the content delivery system may decide that it has collected enough historical data from which the content delivery can use to initialize allocations of transport streams so that most amount of user requests for simultaneous delivery can be accommodated. The content delivery may then create weighted scores for each media content source during a time period. For example, the content delivery system may determine that the media asset from 7 am to 8 am on NBC <b>1322</b> is heavily requested on Tuesdays. Such a determination may also utilize context data such as the fact that many people like to watch early morning news from 7 am to 8 am and the fact that Tuesday is a week day during which most people would get up early to watch morning news. Coupled with historical data which may indicate that millions of users have requested to watch the media asset delivered by NBC <b>1322</b> from 7 am to 8 am on Tuesdays, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may assign a score, such as 10 to each variable that may assist the control circuitry <b>704</b> to determine the user demand associated with the media asset delivered by NBC from 7 am to 8 am. In the example illustrated in <b>1300</b>, the NBC morning news is given a score of 90 from 7 am to 8 am. However, because many viewers do not have access to a TV or a computer during lunch hour, the demand for NBC from 12 pm to 1 pm may decrease and the weighted score may reflect such a decrease by reducing the score to 70. Similarly, the demand for NBC is even lower from 3 pm to 4 pm and a score of 20 is assigned. Finally from 9-10, the historical data has determined that the demand increased again for NBC <b>1322</b>, and the score 90 is assigned.

0139Similarly, weighted scores are calculated for each media content source, such as NBC, CNBC, and FOX. In addition to storing the weighted scores in a data structure associated with each network during an entire day and/or a part of a day, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may further determine how highly correlated programs are with respect to each other. For example, the same household that typically requests simultaneous delivery of media assets from NBC would unlikely to also request simultaneous delivery of media assets from FOX, especially if the request occurred during a time slot that is typically used to air news, such from 7 am to 8 am or 7 pm to 8 pm. That is, users tend to have repeated patterns and long-stand interest of what they like to watch and it would be highly unlikely for the user to request simultaneous delivery of media assets from both networks that offer news during the same time period. Therefore, the two networks during certain time periods of the day may have a low correlation score and the control circuitry <b>704</b> may utilize such information to further predict the initialization of allocations of transport streams, such as to transport media assets of NBC and FOX on two separate transport streams assuming that very few users would need to request simultaneous delivery of media assets from both networks. Thus, media assets associated with media content sources that have a low correlation score may be transported on different transport streams.

0140Using such historical viewing data, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine viewing habits and/or patterns associated with each user. The control circuitry <b>704</b> may use such data to further identify viewing habits and/or patterns associated with a neighborhood, a city, and/or a state. The control circuitry <b>704</b> may optimally run correlation algorithms to detect how highly correlated viewing data about a user during a day is to viewing data collected about the same and/or a different user during the same and/or different parts of the day. In general, the content delivery may infer and/or predict that users may repeat their viewing patterns and, therefore, the demand for simultaneous delivery of more than one media asset may remain fairly consistent for at least the same day of a week. As an example, the viewing data and patterns extracted from the data collected on Tuesday July 20 should be highly correlated with the following Tuesday, July 27. Therefore, the head end may assume that a user would request another episode of “Sex &amp; the City,” “Lost,” and “Hills” be stored simultaneously on every Tuesday and would initialize the allocations of transport streams accordingly at e.g., 1 am on Tuesday August 20, some time after the historical data has collected.

0141Alternatively, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may identify media content source with the most number of viewers on a day. Such information can be inferred from Nielsen's ratings, and/or any other ratings. If the control circuitry <b>704</b> uses ratings from more than one source, the average of all ratings for a media content source and/or media asset may be calculated and used in determining the weighted score.

0142In a fixed line up system (unlike that of a switch digital video, SDV, system) in which allocations of transport streams cannot be dynamically allocated throughout the day, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may determine which media assets of which content source may be linked together and allocated to the same transport stream. In some embodiments, the allocations of transport streams may heavily depend on the total number of requests associated with a media content source and no consideration may be given to parts of a day. That is, while ABC may attract far more viewers than NBC from 9 pm to 10 pm, the total number of viewers of NBC exceeds that of ABC, NBC may be allocated to a transport stream that may transport media assets from other media content sources that receive the most user requests for simultaneous delivery. This way, media content sources with most daily viewers are transported on the same transport stream. The control circuitry <b>704</b> may update the initialization of allocations of transport streams for every day of the week and would adjust the initializations once any new patterns have been detected in the historical viewing data.

0143In a SDV system, although transport streams allocations can be dynamically determined, it may still be preferable to initialize the allocations of transport streams based on the historical data to minimize the frequency of dynamic re-allocations. However, the allocations of transport streams for a SDV system may be different from the allocations of transport streams for a fixed link-up system because the control circuitry <b>704</b> may look ahead and create a prediction of allocations of transport streams based on the upcoming hours, as the bandwidth demand for the same media content source may differ depending on the time of the day. When the demand is lower for NBC from 3-4 pm, the control circuitry <b>704</b> may de-allocate the media asset requested by a user that is provided by NBC to a different transport stream and, instead, allocate media assets associated with children programs providers to the same transport stream on which NBC was transported.

0144Over time, the initialization of allocations of transport streams may be fine tuned by using various machine learning algorithms, such as the Bayesian algorithm. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may also collect viewing data during a time period that a user is watching broadcasting media assets. That is, in addition to monitoring user viewing data associated with a user request to simultaneously receive at least two media assets, control circuitry <b>704</b> may also monitor a user's viewing data when the user is viewing a media asset. Depending on the configuration of a user equipment device, a user's stream selector may be configured to receive broadcasting media assets transporting on the same transport stream. Thus, a user with multiple display devices may watch live or broadcast media assets simultaneously.

0145It should be noted that the examples used above are illustrative only and are not limiting. With many cable companies providing both cable and internet services to end users, bandwidth demand associated with transporting media assets from an Internet source is also considered when determining the initialization of allocations of transport stream, as viewing habits associated with such requests are also monitored. That is, a user may request simultaneous delivery of media assets from Youtube, Pay Per view, and On-Demand. The control circuitry <b>704</b> may link these media assets and transport them on the same transport stream.

0146<figref idref="DRAWINGS">FIG. 14</figref> is a flow diagram <b>1400</b> describing initialization of allocations of transport streams in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. Flow diagram <b>1400</b> describes, in various steps, a method for allocating media assets to a plurality of transport streams in a mixed service system to allow simultaneous delivery of at least two media assets using a single stream selector.

0147At step <b>1402</b>, control circuitry may allocate at a first time a first instance of each of the at least two media assets to a different one of the plurality of transport streams. For example, control circuitry <b>704</b> may at 5 am, on Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2010, allocate media asset “Sex &amp; the City” and media asset “Lost” on different transport streams, such as transport stream <b>806</b> and <b>808</b>. In this example, a user with only one stream selector may not able to receive both “Sex &amp; the City” and “Lost” as the one stream selector can only tune to one transport stream at a time.

0148At step <b>1404</b>, control circuitry may receive from a user a request to simultaneously receive the first instance of the at least two media assets using the single stream selector. As an example, a user may request to simultaneously receive “Sex &amp; the City” and “Lost” using one stream selector, when these media assets come on air.

0149At step <b>1406</b>, control circuitry may generate a viewing history based on the request received from the user during a predetermined time period. For example, control circuitry <b>704</b> may record the various requests that a user has made on Tuesday Jun. 29, 2010 from 5 am to 11 pm. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may store in a database information about the viewing history associated with the user during this time period. The control circuitry <b>704</b> may identify the number of requests the user has made. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may further determine the media assets that the user has viewed during the predetermined time period. Moreover, control circuitry <b>704</b> may also identify the media content sources that provided these media assets. It should be noted that various kinds of viewing history may be gathered during a time period for a user. Control circuitry <b>704</b> may also process the generated viewing history to determine if any pattern exists with the time period.

0150At step <b>1408</b>, the control circuitry may allocate at a second time a second instance of the at least two media assets to a same one of the plurality of transport streams based on the viewing history. For example, a different episode of both “Sex &amp; the City” and “Lost” may air again from 9 pm to 10 pm on Tuesday, Jul. 16, 2010. This occurrence may be a second instance. Based on the user's viewing history, which is that user has requested to simultaneously receive these media assets at this time, control circuitry <b>704</b> may allocate these media assets to the same transport stream. This allocation may occur after the first allocation. That is, this allocation may occur at a second time that is later than the first time, which may be 5 am on June 29. For example, control circuitry <b>704</b> may allocate the media assets to transport streams at 5 am on Jul. 16, 2010 or 8 pm on Jul. 16, 2010, shortly before the media assets are scheduled to air. This way, a user whose user equipment device only has one stream selector can now receive data associated with these media assets simultaneously.

0151It should be noted that simultaneous delivery of at least two media assets include one of simultaneously viewing of the at least media assets and/or simultaneously delivery of the at least media assets. In the case where a user has requested to simultaneously deliver at least two media assets, if the user's stream selector is coupled to more than one demodulator and/or decoder capable of demodulating and/or decoding signals for more than one display devices, the user may simultaneously view the at least two media assets. Thus, the usage of “delivery” or “storage” is not be limited. The details of a user equipment device configured to receive, store, decode and/or demodulate data associated with more than one media asset transported on the same transport stream are described in a pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/581,522, the entirety of which is incorporated here by reference.

0152The above described embodiments of the present invention are presented for purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the present invention is limited only by the claims which follow.